Fury (1936)

Joe Wilson: I’ll give them a chance that they didn’t give me. They will get a legal trial in a legal courtroom. They will have a legal judge and a legal defense. They will get a legal sentence and a legal death.

Fritz Lang remained a very powerful director after he emigrated to the United States.  This, his first film after he left Germany, hits on all cylinders and addresses some of the same themes explored in M.

Joe Wilson (Spencer Tracy) is an ordinary decent working stiff who is saving up to marry his fiancee Catherine (Sylvia Spencer).  Catherine finds a better job in Washington State and the two part until they are more financially secure.  Joe cautions his younger brothers to respect the law and ends up opening a gas station with them.

After a year of separation, Joe happily sets off to Washington in his car to marry Catherine. On the way, he is stopped by a deputy sherriff (Walter Brennan) on the lookout for a gang of child kidnappers.  He is taken into the small town’s sherriff’s station where he is found to have peanuts in his pockets (peanut debris was found in the kidnappers’ abandoned car) and a five dollar bill that matches the serial number of the ransom money.  The sherriff holds Joe in jail while he investigates further.  In the meantime, the rumor mill manufactures a case against him that whips locals into an angry mob.

Fritz Lang delivered with a dark and cynical film that once again explores mob violence, this time from the perspective of an innocent man.  Fury also warns Americans how easily the Constitution and system of justice can be ignored or perverted when faced by the raw emotion of the crowd.  In fact, law enforcement and the courts are shown to be weak safeguards.  At one point, a character remarks that  foreigners are more familiar with the Constitution than native-born Americans because immigrants must study it to become citizens.

I just love the way the film builds from the initial romance to a gradual game of “telephone” like rumor mongering to explosive action and then to cold vengence.  All these aspects are captured with Lang’s expressionist eye.  I think this is one of Spencer Tracy’s greatest performances and the rest of the cast does a good job.  The score by Franz Waxman helps to heighten the drama.  Highly recommended.

I cannot understand why  Fury is not currently available on DVD — I watched it on Amazon’s streaming service.

Trailer